How To Stop Being So Hard On Yourself?

Let’s speak about how to stop being so hard on yourself, how to heal your inner critic, and how to let go of the unnecessary pressure or expectation you place on yourself all the time.

Stop Being So Hard On Yourself — Self Love

Today, I’m going to break down a few different types of foundations and reasons that will lead to you having this tendency of being hard on yourself and hope that you can have greater awareness and some actionable by the end of this post. First and foremost, raise your hand if you have any self-destructive habits, such as being hard on yourself, being your worst critic, and putting yourself through pressure and stress when it’s not always necessary.

I’m sure a lot of us do it. I’m one of them.

And the last year has really been an exercise in dismantling these old notions about why I tend to push myself so hard.

Why do I have such lofty goals for myself? Why am I so stressed out? Why am I being so hard on myself for no apparent reason?

The first exercise you might do is to write a journal entry in response to this simple, plain question: Why am I so hard on myself?

So write that in your journal and begin to respond to it. And I encourage you to question why at least four or five times; the reason you want to keep asking why is that your initial answer is usually a surface-level practical solution.

As a result, you must question, “OK, why does that matter?” Why do I behave in this manner? Then you simply keep peeling back the layers. And I believe this is a fantastic beginning step toward understanding why you are so hard on yourself.

Why are you making life more difficult than it needs to be? Your goal is to try to unearth these old ideas or stories you’ve told yourself that serve as the foundation for how and why you are the way you are.

If you go deep enough, you’ll discover the underlying thoughts and beliefs that are causing you to be this way:

• I’m not good enough……
• I’m not doing enough…..
• I’m not good enough…..
• I’m not attractive enough……
• I’m not blank enough…..

Fill in the blank with anything you’re prone to telling yourself. This underlying notion is what leads to us feeling bad about ourselves. It shatters our confidence and holds us back for no reason other than that we are doing it to ourselves.

And when I look into why you accept this concept, I find that it has to do with your fundamental notions of love, worth, safety, and survival.

So, while you blog and delve deep, consider how this relates to your feelings or wants for love, worth, safety, and survival.

Don’t be concerned if you don’t have a “aha” moment after this journaling session; you are, after all, an onion, and you are peeling back the layers one at a time. And it can take years to peel back these layers as you progress through life.

However, awareness is the first and most significant step toward change. So that’s what we’re attempting to accomplish for the first phase, which is simply raise awareness. And I published those leading posts to assist you figure out what that belief, narrative, or experience means to you.

I’ll tell you a little bit about my background and why I’ve learned I can be so hard on myself. This is something I’ve been working on with the help of a therapist and my healing meditation yoga instructor.

And in the last year, I’ve experienced a slew of fresh revelations. I recognised I needed to make a mental health change.

I had more than enough to keep me happy and safe in my life. Nonetheless, I found myself worrying about the figures and pushing myself to work so hard.

And I’d wonder, why am I still stressing so much? Why do I feel the need to work so hard to keep accomplishing and advancing to the next level?

Oh, this level is insufficient. Allow me to do more and more; why can’t I just be peacefully satisfied with everything I’ve built thus far?

I found myself excessively pushing myself, and this tendency to push and work so hard leads to burnout. So I started wondering why I’m doing this when I have all I need. Why am I in pain?

So, for the past two or three years, I’ve been thinking about how I can slow down. What can I do to do less? Why do I feel terrible for doing less, even when I’m trying to do less? Why do I feel guilty when I am not productive? and actually getting to the bottom of why I pushed myself so hard.

So, if I’m being honest, the most common negative self-talk that I hear in my head is that I’m not doing enough. I ought to be doing more. I could be doing a lot more.

And when you have a profession in social media, the possibilities are endless.

You should make more vids.

You could create more TikToks.

You might be working on a book and this and this and that, and it would never stop.

And going through therapy and rehabilitation has helped me recognise that pushing myself to do more, be the best, and overachieve has been a lifelong habit of mine since I was a child. And it’s so profound.

Essentially, I understood that I am this way because I was raised by a father who had extremely high expectations of both me and my brother.

And there was even dread infused into it when we were little.

• You must be an excellent student.
• You must receive all A’s.
• You must attend a good college.
• You must obtain a nice job, blah, blah, blah.

You must excel and strive to be the best.

And if you’re not good enough or obtain decent grades, we’ll send you to boarding school. And it was a terrible thought.

So there was that apprehension. There was also apprehension. If you don’t achieve in life, your father will cut you off and you will have to support your mother and brother. For financial reasons, you will have to support the family.

Those two causes were intertwined with my survival instinct. As a result, I had to be a good student. I needed to succeed in order to survive, because failing to do so would endanger my life.

It challenged my sense of safety and existence, and coming up with a father who had such high expectations, nothing we accomplished ever felt good enough for him.

And, of course, there’s the abandonment issue because he abandoned our family. And so I know that the sensation of attaining and proving to him that I was accomplished and deserving. This is also related to my feeling of self-worth and my need for love and acceptance.

So, while I was growing up, success equaled my worth, and success equaled affection. And it becomes a positive feedback cycle in which you do well and get complimented for it.

So you’re like, oh my God, that praise and love sensation. So let me do well again and receive more and more applause.

And stuff simply continues piling on top of itself. So I kind of grew up that way, where I thrived off of other people’s acceptance and approval, and anything that endangered that was terrible. As a result, my self-worth was not based on myself.

Nobody ever taught me that you are valuable no matter what.

As a result, I believe that many people’s worth has been displaced and they are unaware of it. And it’s only when this entire system falls down and you realise you’re acting in a mentally unhealthy manner that you realise, okay, I need to heal this.

It’s ironic because this tendency is often celebrated in our society because it works for people who associate their self-worth with their productivity or success. They tend to succeed in life since that is what they require to survive.

That’s what they’re subsisting on. And the people you see who are successful, making a lot of money, accomplishing great things, and they can’t seem to stop. Many of them have a root of insecurity, and they’re worth being attached to something that shouldn’t be tied to.

Of course, there are still ways to succeed in a healthy manner, but there are also many people who are driven by fear in this negative manner. That is not sustainable in the long run. So let’s keep digging into this subject.

You can do more exercises. Let me explain it further for you. The first step toward healing your inner critic is recognising what is causing the broken record.

What is the negative self-talk that keeps repeating itself? So start writing down and making a list of the common things you tell yourself, because it varies from person to person.

As I already stated, mine was that you are not doing enough.

• You ought to be doing more.
• You’re not up to the task.

And I believe that other people’s may be as well.

• You have no value.
• You will not be successful.
• You are not deserving of this.

So put down the usual things you play on and repeat in your head.

And for each of your thoughts, ask yourself, “Where did this come from?”

Is this what I’m thinking?

Or did I obtain it from somewhere else?

Is this something I learned from the media?

Is this something I picked up from society?

Where did this idea come from?

Because it most clearly did not come from you. This was not an idea you had when you were a newborn. So it has to have come from somewhere other than you.

So look into it and see where it came from. My negative thoughts were caused by my parents’ high expectations, I discovered. And if you know that it is coming from somewhere other than yourself, you may begin to say, oh, okay.

It’s merely a thought that came from somewhere else. I’m not required to believe this. It’s true, according to whom. Nobody said, “Yes, it’s true.”

Working with your child self is the next practise you can do.

So shut your eyes. Imagine yourself as a youngster, say, five years old; if it helps, look at your baby pictures and put them in front of you.

And imagine that child giving herself the same negative ideas that you are telling yourself now. As an outsider, what would you say to that child version of you, knowing that she is thinking and feeling this way?

It’s up to you whether you want to talk to yourself in your head or journal this out, but this is a very powerful exercise because it helps you examine yourself and your ideas from a more objective perspective, and to see that these thoughts are irrational and aren’t helping you.

You’ll probably discover that the way you speak to a youngster is considerably gentler and kinder than the way you speak to yourself.

So, what’s the deal with being so hard on yourself? You still have that inner child. You still desire the things that that child desired when she was younger.

So talk to yourself and tell yourself everything you want to hear. And do let me know if you do this exercise; I’d love to hear your opinions afterward.

Healing, the overachiever in you or the part of you that has expectations and puts pressure on yourself, as I alluded to in my personal narrative, has to do with knowing where your self-worth is rooted, where your sense of love or survival, safety or security is rooted.

The first thing I want to emphasise is that it is not your fault. This is most likely a result of your upbringing. And if you grew up in the United States, or any competitive nation like the United States, you probably believe that production and success are linked to worth and value.

This is just a part of civilization, and the culture of industrialization and capitalism has instilled these notions in us. The requirement to be productive in order to be judged important and worthy.

“Do Nothing” is a book that I highly suggest for explaining this. It explains that it was during the industrial age that humans began to perceive time as money and output as valuable.

And we began to teach individuals how to extract as much productivity as possible from people in order to maximise output, since it was literally a matter of manpower and labour. And our school systems are still structured in the way they are.

Modelled on the industrialization era since that system and timetable was designed to train you for factory work and to prepare you to be the most productive and rule-following people

Aside from mental digging and contemplation, unwinding and understanding yourself and why you are the way you are, the next activity I prescribe for high achievers and overachievers is to make time to relax.

It’s very simple, but we need to make time in our schedules to do nothing and relax, as well as physically relax our bodies of the strain that we carry around with us.

I’m not sure about you, but you probably have tightness in your neck, shoulders, and back that you hold on to because you care so much and push yourself so hard.

So I really advocate yoga, going for walks, and physically moving your body in a way that allows you to relax more deeply. Meditation and breathing exercises

These are topics I frequently discuss on my YouTube channel. It may sound usual and cliche, but you have to do it. Do you take time to unwind every day? We can be harsh on ourselves at times because we lack confidence and are insecure.

And having those two characteristics may really stymie you in life because it’s a vicious cycle. You lack self-assurance. As a result, you don’t present your best self, and people don’t get to know who you truly are.

Then you start to doubt yourself. You’re not allowing yourself to be your fullest, most honest self because you’re hiding behind fear.

I believe that this amount of insecurity stems from how you grew up; whether your parents were harsh on you and didn’t think you were good enough, or you were bullied as a child, a lot of things as a child can really affect your confidence and cause you to be insecure for the rest of your life.

And it’s incredibly heartbreaking to watch someone who doesn’t realise or see how lovely and powerful they are.

If you can connect to this, it’s likely that you haven’t developed a habit of congratulating yourself and your accomplishments. You probably dismiss any accomplishments or victories as “well, that’s, that’s not a big deal.” That’s not a lot. I’m still not very good.

So, instead of focusing on the things you don’t like about yourself, my exercise for you is to start celebrating yourself. Make a list of all the things you like about yourself, all the things you want to celebrate about yourself, rather than focusing on the things you don’t like. Make a list of all the wins you can be proud of in your life.

Even if they are small, it doesn’t matter how big or small it is, it’s important to rejoice and honour it.

Consider the worth of who you are and what you’ve accomplished. Being able to look back and realise how far you’ve come and be proud of it is a very strong mindset.

You have lived a life up to this point if you are reading this. So there are a lot of things to be proud of. Looking back, it’s possible that you simply weren’t paying attention to it.

Another exercise you may do is to simply shine brighter as your actual self. The first step is to think about all of the individuals you admire in the world, whether they are alive or from history, and develop a list of all of their personality qualities and attributes that make you admire them.

So you admire people who are brilliant, creative, and have integrity, honesty, and guts, right? So write a list of personality attributes that you admire and store it somewhere you’ll see it.

The second step is to create a Pinterest board or a mood board with pictures of people and lifestyles that you admire, whether it’s in the clothes they wear or the places they go, the things they do with their lives, just construct that vision board, mood board of visuals that inspire you.

These two activities will give you a decent notion of the ideal person you want to be, the one who encompasses all of these personality traits and attributes.

And you want to be the person who aesthetically resembles the individuals you respect and the lives they lead. Then comes the question of how I may begin to embrace these things in my life.

And this will be done gradually. Perhaps it begins with something easy, such as purchasing this clothing that I really like on this individual and allowing me to discover something comparable.

So that I might be more self-assured. I hope you understand what I’m saying. You’re essentially creating a blueprint for your ideal self, your truest self who shines brightly because your existing self is most likely a muted version of yourself.

So it’s a lifelong exercise in trying to shine brighter as your truest self, with the underlying goal and lesson on how to stop being so hard on yourself being to learn to love yourself unconditionally, with all of the things I talked about today, all of the exercises I shared today being at the root of it.

That’s all there is to being loving: being gentle with yourself. It’s being kind to yourself. It’s being kind to yourself. These are the topics we’ve discussed. Self-love is not a new concept.

You should understand how crucial that is by now, but getting there is a process. It’s a process of transformation because you’re effectively releasing, peeling back, and discarding old beliefs and layers of yourself that are no longer benefiting you.

Putting undue strain on oneself is counterproductive.

Having an inner critic is counterproductive.

Being too hard on yourself isn’t helping you.

Why be hard on yourself when life can be so difficult?

The greatest commitment to self-love is realising that I will not subject myself to any suffering that I do not need to subject myself to, because if it is unnecessary, I can remove it from my life.

True self-love entails doing everything possible to support and allow yourself to thrive. Our goal is to prosper in life and shine as our best selves since only then can you feel confident and free.

When you love yourself, you are able to love others and the world more. And, as corny as it may sound, we all know that the world needs more love. That is extremely accurate.

So I’ll leave it there.

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